Why We Fought – An Oral History of the war with Sangvis Ferri
by caryalaciniosa
Summary: This is a short story submission originally written for a Girls' Frontline writing contest


**From All Quarters**

PPSh-41

Submachine gun, scout

Oh, I was from St. Petersburg… one of the bakeries there, on the outskirts. It wasn't very nice, very hot and cramped and monotonous… I joined Griffin because I wanted to escape. Get paid, too… real money, not crap wage. There weren't many people who treated dolls nice then, but Griffin had a good reputation. A lot of dolls joined up for that reason, I think… I wanted to fight Sangvis too. I didn't know anything about guns, I just wanted to go to that front. It was on the news a lot…

FAMAS

Assault rifle, infantrydoll

It was 2060 when I joined. I was from Marseille. An older doll, everyone said… sure, I'm older, but I still outperformed all the new girls. They were good sports about it, though. I joined because… Griffin was really becoming something then. Marseille wasn't a place I wanted to live in, it was poor and loud and unpleasant. A Griffin recruiter visited our block one day, told us the details. It was easy to sign my life over, didn't take much... I considered leaving when I got reassigned to fight Sangvis, but I didn't really have a home by then. Marseille didn't count… Griffin was about it for me.

SIG-510

Assault rifle, reserves

Zurich. It was nice there, very quiet and peaceful and orderly. Not like Eastern Europe at all, haha… I missed it, yes, very much. I really couldn't handle my first year or so at Griffin. But that contract… IOP was smart about it, that was for sure. I didn't dare leave. Not that I really wanted to, in the end. I had joined, why should I back out? And, well, I wanted to do more than just work in a bank or something. I guess that's the thing about Switzerland… it's so boring, even if it's safe. Griffin was something more exciting… well, I guess I didn't realize how exciting it would really be.

Tokarev

Handgun, command staff

Moscow, yeah. My friend was very upset that I chose to join, she saw me off at the airport and waved at me all the way until I couldn't see her. I think she wanted to join too, she just never told me. A lot of the dolls I knew didn't have the stomach. Which is fine, I felt the same way, almost chickened out right before I signed… they gave us a deadline so you could back out, if you wanted. My friend begged me to, said she couldn't stand to imagine me in a trench with a gun. I think she had an interesting perception of it all, haha. But I suppose I didn't think all that different. What did I know about Griffin… nothing. But that didn't matter to me.

Mosin Nagant

Rifle, sniper

Samara, I was from Samara. I'd shot a gun before, yeah. Helped my owner do a lot of hunting. I joined because… well, it paid well, and it sounded interesting, and it would be fun and easy. Yeah, I was pretty simple back then, haha. I guess I still am… I go back, when I can. I wish so much of Russia wasn't contaminated, but saying that won't change anything. I would take my Griffin buddies whenever we got leave. None of them had really hunted before. It was different from shooting Sangvis, that was for sure. I still have some habits from the war. I'm thinking about trying to find a way to live in Samara for real, permanently. They don't really want dolls without owners, though…

M60

Machine gunner

I was made after the real war with Sangvis broke out. IOP sent me right to Griffin, so I didn't really have a home or a past like the other dolls did. It really sucked. "M60, where are you from?" … oh, I'm from an IOP construction chamber. That's the best I could ever give. One of my friends, M1911, offered to take me to the US during a break one time. I said no, but I regretted it later. I think I was just scared that I would like it too much and wouldn't want to come back to Griffin. Afterwards, M2 said I could stay with her in France, so I said yes. There was nowhere else to go… I miss being in Griffin, yes, probably more than the others. But I try not to talk about it with them, it makes them very uncomfortable…

**Of Girls and their Guns**

AS Val

Assault rifle, night operations

AS Val, 6P30, "Shaft," they nicknamed it… Yes, that was me. It was a heavy gun, way heavier than I thought it would be. Very quiet, though, that made me happy. It sort of typified me as a Russian, though, but I guess I didn't really mind. It was nice to be a part of a group. I did wonder what it would be like to have one of the American or European guns, though, they always seemed to have a lot of fun with each other. All the Soviet girls were pretty quiet… Except AK-47 and A-91, hahaha. Yeah, there was a lot of alcohol then, the Commander turned a blind eye in those days. I think some of the dolls needed it.

NS2000

Shotgun, base security

Yes, I was very different from the others doll of my type. Neostead, South African, very special. Bullpup, did you know that? And a forward pump action. Very special indeed. It made me feel bad for a while, when I first started, but I learned that it doesn't pay to feel bad about yourself. I did the job well enough, that was what really mattered to the dolls and the Commander… Yes, Sangvis dolls were pretty tough, so I loaded tungsten slugs instead of shot. Expensive. Griffin was paying for them, so it was all good in my book… not that I could have paid out of pocket, I didn't have a rouble to my name…

Jericho

Handgun, echelon leader

Israeli design, yes. I'd never shot a gun before, so when they gave it to me I couldn't handle it well at all. Nearly shot one of the trainers, actually. They let me shoot it for a little and then installed the core and etched the weapon to me. Then I could nail all the targets… very surreal, I hadn't even been in training for a day. "Training," yeah, there wasn't any real training with the weapon. I guess that's the nice part about using dolls, it's all just programmed in. I keep telling myself that it's a good thing, but it still makes me feel uncomfortable…

SAR 21

Assault rifle, reconnaissance

They gave me a rifle, told me it was what I would be using. I didn't get any choice in it. I felt very annoyed then, I had joined Griffin to escape being ordered around, and here I was being told what to do… Well, that was what a lot of Griffin was like. I got used to it, though, and when I was senior enough the only orders I got were about battles. I never used the rifle outside of battles. There was a practice range, yes, but I never needed it, never wanted to practice like the other dolls. Hitting Sangvis was never the problem, it was dealing with all their numbers…

Ingram

Submachine gun, infantrydoll

Oh, I loved my weapon. Easy to handle, quick to fire, small… it was like a brick, but that just made it easier to bash Sangvis heads when I needed to. I had a knife too, yeah, I still keep it with me. I blew through a lot of ammunition, but nobody at the base seemed to mind. I was very good with it. My friends in the echelon thought I was pretty weird. I attributed it to the gun at first, but later realized it was me… Whatever. I got the job done, that's what mattered at the end of the day. I think I was one of the few that really enjoyed fighting Sangvis. I didn't want to leave Griffin ever…

Zastava M21

Assault rifle, grenadier

When I first got my core installed and weapon etched, they had told me that I would have to be very careful and deliberate with my grenades. There was a training range, too. "Try it out, there are some dummies out there." I shot off a grenade. It was loud and bright, something like the fireworks I saw back home, except not as deafening. I decided to go out onto the range, to see what the dummy was like… full of shards of metal. It was a real dummy too, so it was bleeding coolant everywhere and had a dead look in its eyes. I lost the stomach for using grenades after that, and I didn't really get it back until we were in a battle with Sangvis and my echelon leader gave me the order to use it. It was much easier to blow Sangvis up, I'll say that much. No, I don't go to the fireworks anymore...

**Of Leaders and Followers**

OTs-14

Assault rifle, night operations

He was a younger man, from France. Very idealistic, I would say, he was no expert when it came to the battlefield. Kind, though… very kind. He put together a Christmas celebration every year, and made a card for each doll. We never did anything as nice in return, unfortunately… All of us dolls were too preoccupied with fighting Sangvis, or dreaming about fighting Sangvis. Yes, we were very fervent back in those days. The Commander never seemed quite as excited as we ever were. Everyone agreed it was because he didn't like seeing the doll's corpses, or even hearing about our deaths. So there, that was something nice we did for him, we tried not to get killed. I remember he hugged me after a particularly dangerous night mission… "Oh Groza, I'm glad you made it out alive"... "Stop squeezing me like that, sir," I said. I heard that he had been in tears when 9A-91 was shot one time. The poor man, I wonder why Griffin hired him in the first place. Poor man… he was very kind.

PPSh-41

Submachine gun, scout

The Commander was an older fellow, lots of gray hairs. All gray, actually. It was weird to see someone that old in the Griffin uniform, they usually took younger people. Powell, that was his name. He was nice enough, always wished us well before we were deployed. Maybe he knew how dangerous the missions were that he was sending us on… that would make a lot of sense. I get the feeling that he was very smart, he just never showed it to us. I heard from Galil that he had been in Griffin for a while. He didn't speak Russian too well, I think he was a foreigner… he never took leave, though.

TAR-21

Assault rifle, radioman

We had a big offensive some time in September. Very big, the neighboring area was part of it, Helian was there to evaluate the Commander, so on… He gave us this speech before we started. "Girls… for many of you, this is the most meaningful day yet in your career…" hahahaha! No one could take him seriously at the beginning. We knew he was a bit melodramatic, but not this much. It was too much to take, I almost laughed aloud. But some of his words did have meaning. "This is war, girls, and it's different than anything else any of you have done. Many of you worked before you came to Griffin, many of you have seen combat, well, let me tell you that this will be quite different…" Some of us still stifled giggles, but he was right, that was the thing… none of us were really ready for that battle. It was long and cold and wet and… no, none of us were ready… the Commander didn't make another speech after we returned, just gave us a look as we marched back into base… it was respect, I think, but he seemed a little sad as well.

SuperSASS

Rifle, sniper

The Commander was a woman. Yes, I know, it was quite odd… no one expected it. I'd always heard of male commanders. She gave us an address, all the dolls who were newcomers, and then put us all in a line and walked in front of us and stared at each of us for a second as she walked by. And that was it. Just a look. She was very old, I think in her late fifties. We rarely saw her again, only when she chanced to walk through the atrium. Her adjutant, Type 81, delivered all the instructions. That was a very large base, I remember, hundreds of dolls, a large space, huge tracts of land… maybe she needed the help. She was a military officer before Griffin, I heard, and she served in the war. The world war, I mean. To my recollection, she was some sort of intelligence officer then, but she did a lot of tactical planning too. I could see why Griffin would want her. She always looked very serious, melancholy, you could say. I said to my echelon leader one day, when I was still new, "What's the Commander like, have you ever talked to her?" and she nodded, but didn't really say anything… didn't want to say anything, I suppose. I remember hearing that the Commander was very highly decorated. "SASS, did you hear that the Commander got a new medal?" "Yes, yes, Makarov told me…" She had won another medal for commanding one of the battles we fought in the area, apparently. That miffed me a little, I had gotten shot in the leg during that battle, hahaha. No doll ever got a medal, but the Commander did commend them from time to time. We didn't really want ribbons or awards or anything anyway, we didn't have anywhere to pin them on our chest. I asked RFB one time if she knew what other medals the Commander had, but she couldn't tell me… she was a very private woman, that much was evident.

Springfield

Rifle, company cook

Hm, he was very quiet. Never ordered alcohol, either, always a cranberry juice. "What can I get you, sir?"... "Cranberry juice." I was very annoyed in the beginning, I asked him if he wanted anything else but that, but he insisted. I had to start ordering a supply of it more often just because of him. He came in four times a day, dawn, lunch, dusk, and eleven o'clock. Very punctual. He never replied to me when I tried to make conversation, though one time he asked me what I had done before I joined Griffin. I was a worker at a bar in Belgrade. I think he was from Serbia, he smiled a little at that. The only time he smiled, come to think of it. He was good enough commander, never a tactical genius, but he never got anyone killed when it was avoidable. I appreciate that. Our sector was quiet, too. Helian was at the base one time for a yearly evaluation, she got a drink… Scotch, I remember… I asked her, "What's the deal with the Commander, he's awfully quiet." Helian just told me that he had been in an adverse situation before his employment at Griffin and was rather troubled, that he was still a good Commander and that it wasn't my place to ask questions about it. Well, who am I to argue with Helian… I stopped trying to make conversation with him after that.


End file.
